Restoring an Antique Tilt-Top Table - Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration

I'm Tom Johnson, Thomas Johnson Antique Furniture Restoration in Gorham, Maine. This is a very nice tilt-top table, curly maple. A pipe burst in a house and it was damaged in the ensuing flood. You can see there's all kinds of plaster all over it. This appears to be a very old table. This style of table would be called a Chippendale table from the 18th century. I don't see any reason to think that this couldn't be that old. The way the edge is carved and also the construction of the table. The legs are attached with sliding dovetails. But also there's this very old piece of metal that I call a spider. And certainly that looks old. And of course anything can be added to a table later. It's tough to date. But the details on the edge, everything about this table, make me see no reason that it might not be an 18th century table. So I'm going to take this finish down just with some solvents. I've got to get everything off of here and then apply a new finish. When deciding whether or not to refinish an antique, there's a couple things you've got to take into consideration. Number one, the condition of the finish. And in this case, this finish has been ruined by water sitting on it, especially in this area here. And secondly, I don't think this is the original finish. This piece has been repaired many times before and I'd say that it's probably been refinished a few times before too. I'm going to try stripping this first with just some lacquer thinner. I'll take lacquer thinner and number one steel wool and see if this finish will come off of here. Alright, I've let this dry overnight and it looks pretty good. And now I'm going to sand it with 150. I'm just going to sand by hand, just with 150. I'll do 220 later. I just want to clean off the surface. I don't really want to change it that much. Okay, I've sanded this pretty well with 150. And there's still a lot of darkness. I've got a lot of dark spots, which I don't know if they were caused by the burst pipe in the people's home. They might have been there previously. A lot of darkness in the grain here. So I'm going to treat this with oxalic acid. I'm not sure if it's my imagination, but I think I can see some lessening of some of these dark spots already. And you won't really know until it's done drying. Okay, the oxalic acid is just about dry. And I'm really thrilled with it. Almost all those black marks came out. They're greatly diminished. So I'm pretty happy with it. Now I'm going to rinse it off. You really want to make sure that you get all this oxalic off. Because when I sand it again tomorrow, I don't want to be breathing oxalic acid. I'm real happy with how the tabletop looks wet. There's a little preview of what it's going to look like. I've let this dry overnight. It looks really good. So now I'm going to sand it again really well with just 220 paper. Okay, this top's all sanded now with 220. Now, I noticed when this top came in, besides all the obvious water damage, that it was really bleached out. It must have been in a really sunny location. The top is substantially lighter than the base. And I'm going to put a little paint thinner on here just to see what the color is and compare it to the base. The top is really light. And I can really see a huge difference here. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to experiment a little bit. I have some stain here. This is pigmented stain from a local manufacturer. It's just brown stain. It's just called brown. Here's my tung oil finish. And I'm going to add a little stain to the finish. So maybe on the first coat, we'll be tinting a little bit. Now, bear in mind, my goal is not to match the base. And, in fact, in any piece of antique furniture, especially tabletops, the top should always be lighter than the base. But I want to take it a little bit more in that direction. It was a little bit too washed out. I'm going to try a little bit more. Okay, I've let it soak in for a few minutes. I'll just wipe it off. All right, let that dry overnight. All right, that first coat has dried overnight. It doesn't need any sanding or anything. It pretty well soaked in. Now time for the second coat. And I think I'll use a coat with some more of that stain in it. This is what I have left of the tung oil with that brown stain in it. And I'm just going to add more tung oil, not any more stain. I like the color I was seeing. When brushing a coat with stain in it, you've got to put on a really even coat. You can't have streaks that you wouldn't see with a clear finish. I'm anxious to see how this color looks with the base. I think it looks really good. It's the same color as the base, but a little lighter. It's just what I wanted. All right, now I'll just let this dry overnight. Okay, so this has dried. It feels like it needs sanding. You can't sand a coat that has stain in it. It would make that coat uneven or your stain uneven. But luckily with tung oil, you don't have to sand between coats. I'm just going to blow this off and then apply a coat of clear tung oil. Well, this coat has dried overnight. It looks great. So now I'm going to sand it with 320 gold. I'm all done sanding. I just brushed it off a little bit. I'm going to wipe it off with a paper towel with some paint thinner. And now this coat will be satin tung oil. I'm hoping that this might be my final coat. I'll just decide after it dries. I think I definitely have enough finish on here to protect the surface. I just need to have enough finish so that I can do the final rub-out process. All right, this coat looks great. It's going down really well. We'll see how it looks tomorrow. Okay, I've let two days go by. This coat has dried really well. And I like the sheen. I want to bring up the sheen a little bit with some wax. In the meantime, if you can feel this coat, you'll feel there's lots of little nits all over it. What I'm going to do is take a single-edge razor blade that I have in a holder here. And I'm going to very carefully take off a lot of those nits with this razor blade. Doing this with the razor blade is a little difficult. Because remember, I did not sand this top very much. I did not sand it flat. So I've got to be really careful that I don't cut through the finish. And I'm holding it at a bit of an angle to make sure I can ride with the unevenness. Okay, I've razor bladed the entire tabletop. And it feels really smooth now. My next step, I'm going to wax it. And I'm going to wax it with steel wool. And that will make it even smoother. So with the wax and steel wool, I'm doing one section at a time. I did this board. Now I'm doing this part. And when I feel I've got it really smooth with the steel wool, then I take my rag and really make sure that the wax is even. If the wax dries unevenly, it doesn't buff out. So you've really got to make sure you've got a nice, even, thin, thin, even coat. And now, on to the base. Now, for the base here, I'm just going to clean it down with some paint thinner and a gray scrubbing pad. Some of this paint's a little stubborn. This is a water-based cleaner. Yeah, that seems to be taking that off. So now I just want to go over it really lightly with some used 320. There's only one area in here where the finish looks a little funky. So I've still got some of the tung oil with the brown stain in it. And I think I'm going to brush a coat of that onto this base. And I hope that that's all it needs. Okay, now I've just got to reattach the base. All right, now I'm going to go over this base with steel wool and wax, just like I did with the top, with steel wool and wax, just like I did with the top. So there it is, this beautiful, antique, curly maple tilt top. If you remember, the top was badly damaged from a burst pipe, so it was necessary to refinish it. But I think by doing everything by hand, I've really preserved the look of the table.